BY TARA HEIDGER
Nashik, India
“Chris! We have less than an hour before we have to be there and you want to take a shower?” I asked my husband as he grabbed his soap and looked at me with a shrug. After 30 hours of traveling, I realized that I probably should take a shower too. However, the anxiety and the nerves, not to mention the months of patience I had already exercised, meant that I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to do the same.
He quickly hugged me as he ducked into the bathroom. I took a deep breath and sat on the hotel bed. I resigned myself to 30 more minutes of waiting and lay down to clear my head and breathe for a moment. I mentally began going through everything I wanted to say, to document, and to remember. I was thankful for my husband’s camera equipment and the new GoPro he had purchased so we could narrate and capture the next few days.
The journey to India had been a long time coming. After multiple births that ended in burials rather than happy homecomings, we decided to grow our family through adoption. Emotionally drained, we could not handle the uncertainty of a domestic adoption where there is window allowing birth parents to change their minds. We decided to look abroad.
India has a long and complicated history with adoption. Horror stories of selling children or sending them to orphanages to collect pity donations by western visitors are all too frequent. A 2012 Indian law addressing many of these issues was a large move in making the process more transparent. Today, all waiting children require months of background checks and verification that their circumstances from birth were not an effort in monetary gain.
Our appointment with the orphanage was at 1:30. As Chris got his camera gear together, I did one last map check to make sure I had memorized the route for the 15 minute walk to the orphanage. The 110 degree May heat was suffocating, but I smiled knowing that in less than an hour, we would be parents of twins.
I felt an incredible peace as we walked through the chaotic streets of Panchavi Nashik. The anxiety that had built over the months of paperwork and bureaucracy was now only a memory and all worries about immigration and the children’s health while living in an orphanage seemed to fade. Chris too seemed to be lighter and less anxious as he quietly pointed out fruit stands and cows roaming the streets. India was everything I had expected, and the year of anticipation for this day made our walk a surreal experience.
“Hey can you turn on the GoPro? I think we should document the last small street before the orphanage.” I said to Chris as I prepped a little narration in my head. Cars, motorbikes and rickshaws honked as they passed with drivers staring at the white people who normally don’t frequent the streets of Nashik.
“Here we are!” I say to the GoPro as he begins recording. “Adharashram Orphanage is just around the corner! In only a few minutes we will be holding Jui and Jai!” I said in a sing-song voice trying to hide both the nerves and the tears that sprung to my eyes. Thankful for my sunglasses, I reminded myself to take note of every detail in these next few moment which I had been anticipating in my head for nearly a year.
When the orphanage came into view, I was surprised by its simplicity. It didn’t stand out at all on the loud and busy street. Surrounded by a tall wall with barbed wire, it could easily pass for an office or an apartment building. The old metal playground that I had seen in pictures was not visible from the street and the big metal gate we pushed through to enter was the first line of protection for the many children who lived within.
Chris grabbed my hand and took a deep breath. We looked at each other knowing that our years of heartbreak, tears and uncertainty were finally culminating into this moment. Our relationship had grown stronger and our past losses felt to finally have meant something more. The twins had been born 10 months prior, within days of the due date of our final pregnancy. Although we are not religious, it was almost as if our lives seemed as if they were meant to come together.
We could hear screams and laughter coming from inside the open windows and young girls were peeking out from behind the building and shrieking at our arrival. I began to feel jittery with nerves as I took a deep breath and we walked up the few steps into the building. We entered the dark hall and sari-wearing caretakers ushered us to a small office just around the corner. A short man with a bald head behind the desk jumped to his feet and in perfect English welcomed us to Adharashram and introduced himself as Rahul. I knew Rahul had been instrumental in our case pushing it through quickly and I assumed it was because it would relieve the orphanage of two much needed beds. The many thank yous that I professed seemed meaningless compared to the effort he had made on our behalf.
Rahul ushered us to the waiting area. I had seen pictures of this room from other families who had adopted from Adhashram before us. It was bigger than I expected. Standing in a place I had already imagined so many times brought a sense of reality to this moment. I could feel my heart racing and a nervousness I wasn’t expecting. I thought back to the first minutes meeting my birth daughter and how that moment too was seared into my memory. Would these next few moments be the same? Would their 10 month old minds comprehend our unfamiliarity? Would they be scared of us and scream for their caretakers?
My heart leaped again when Rahul told us the girls would be down shortly after their bath. I wished it was me who could have bathed them the first 10 months of their life. Doubts crept into my mind as I wondered again if they would remember their time at the orphanage and maybe even someday resent us for taking them out of their home and their country.
I was thankful for Chris who made small talk with Rahul. I didn’t feel like I was thinking clearly enough to articulate niceties or the many questions I had formulated over the months regarding their arrival to the orphanage and the strong desire I felt to know everything about the months I had missed.
Moments later there was a commotion in the hallway and two women rushed in, each carrying a newborn-sized baby dressed in white and with a red bindi on their forehead. I startled at their tiny size and hesitated. Which one should I reach for first? The girls didn’t make any noise and looked a bit confused as they were handed out of the comfort of their caretakers arms, the only mothers they had ever known, and into ours. At only 12 pounds I couldn’t believe how frail they felt but still couldn’t help myself feel overcome with love as I squeezed them for the first time. The world as they knew it was about to change. It wasn’t their choice to be adopted, but ours. I stood there bouncing Jai with tears in my eyes, hoping she and her sister would eventually love us as much as we already loved them.
“So, what did you think?” I ask Chris as I turn the GoPro towards him on our walk down a backroad to our hotel a few hours later.
“Love at first sight.”
“Really?” I laughed, a bit surprised at the immediacy of his answer.
“They melted my heart. It’s unbelievable.” He said quietly.
And once again, I am thankful for the sunglasses as tears of joy and relief wash over me.